Mental Health Director Denounces Existing Anti-Marijuana Legislation

The director of psychiatric research at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston strongly condemned existing anti-manijuana legislation last night and suggested that legal treatment of drug offenders be greatly relaxed.

Speaking at a Kennedy Institute seminar on hallucinogenic drugs. Dr. Lester Grinspoon, also associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School, said that survey studies of marijuana users have failed to link marijuana to psychosis, crime, personality deterioration, or use of stronger drugs.

Explaining that psychosis occurrence is the same among users as among non-users of marijuana. Grinspoon added, "If we assume that marijuana embraces people with more than the usual amount of neurotic or mental problems, the drug may well be protecting its user from psychosis by dulling the impact of unbearable anxiety or overwhelming reality."

Citing statistics that place the percentage of marijuana users among American soldiers in Vietnam as high as 65 per cent, Grinspoon said that "there have been fewer psychoses among American history."

Moslem Influence

Grinspoon noted that present-day allegations concerning the after-effects of marijuana can be traced back several centuries to the time of the Moslem empire. He contended that such "misinformation" has been spread by federal narcotics authorities since marijuana was outlawed in the mid-1930's.

Grinspoon suggested several cultural rationalizations for the ban on marijuana. He said that intoxication by marijuana is "an easily gained pleasure which was in conflict with the Protestant ethic of earning whatever is received."

Grinspoon added that "covert racism" may have played a part in anti-marijuana legislation. He explained that marijuana users in America were "predominantly non-caucasian" at the time the law was passed, and that speculations of harmful after-effects may have been linked to marijuana by way of racial prejudice.

Present-day attitudes toward marijuana users represent "a great medical cop-cut," Grinspoon concluded. Enough information exists about the drug, he said, for people to realize "that what we're doing now is completely unsatisfactory."